The Silent Room
by doramatikku
Summary: AU. Mugen's getting the chills. He suddenly finds himself awake at night, with an eerie feeling that something or someone is watching him.
1. Now I lay Me Down to Sleep

Title: Silent Room  
Challenge: 6th sense  
Disclaimer: Samurai Champloo belongs to ... whoever created the characters and sexy Jin. :) And possibly Shinichiro Watanabe, since he directed this.

He suddenly woke up; his eyes forced themselves opened as though they were possessed and his feet moved themselves along the stiff carpet that lined his apartment. Where was he going? Wasn't he asleep just moments ago?

Mugen's eyes caught a glimpse of the night outside, with the busy city lights slowly dimming and the cars driving by at slower rate. The clock said that it was two in the morning, but something felt wrong. His fingers wrapped along the cold gleam of the doorknob, and he tried to open the door to his apartment, but the knob was frozen; it wouldn't let him turn. The strangeness of it all didn't worry him. After all, it could very well be a dream, a very bad one considering how much beer he drank at the party last night. It was a miracle that he even made it back home to his apartment in one piece.

Finally, it seemed as though he had control over his body again, as he was able command it again, dragging his feet back towards the direction the bed. But before he could nose-dive back into the warmth of his white comforter, a strange sensation swept across his body as an ocean of chills prickled his skin, driving the hairs on his neck to stand upright and his heart to beat faster. He felt something was watching him from behind.

Yet, the moment he turned around, all he saw was his pale, barren wall. Shrugging it off, Mugen concluded that it must have been the insane amount of alcohol that was driving his imagination in overdrive. Never had he suffered from a visually stunning nightmare, even when he was a child. But he did suffer from hallucinations, just once after taking a bad acid trip. He never took those damn mushrooms again.

For protection, Mugen grabbed his sword from underneath the bed, and brought it with him as he slipped back under the covers. The sword's harsh coldness told him that he was actually awake, and though it was rusted from all those years of being handed down from one family member to the other, it gave him a slight comfort knowing the blade was real, originating from the Edo period hundreds of years ago.

But even with the sword in hand, Mugen could not shake off that feeling that plagued him. It felt like fear, a fear that's been drenched in wine so that it became utterly seductive. A fear so strong, yet subtle. A fear that was coming to him because he was it's chosen victim.

Mugen sat upright, his fingers still clutched tightly around the hilt of the sword, and he looked around. Nothing, there was nothing but the sparse decoration of his apartment, and maybe a few empty cans of beer and a bottle of wine here or there.

Sighing, Mugen let his eyes roll up to the wall, and it was there that he noticed water that seemed to be dripping from his ceiling. There were no water marks, nor were there sounds of running water from the apartment above his. Squinting his eyes so that they could focus on the drop of water that threatened to drip, Mugen's eyes widened as he saw a hand morph out of his wall. Then came a head, then a neck, a torso, then followed by a body that looked so battered and decayed, it might have been a corpse.

It (whatever it was) sighed as it heaved it's way out of the wall, inching towards Mugen.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move. His body wouldn't obey him and his nerves were paralyzed as he watched the thing creep closer, the pieces of it's hanging flesh suddenly moving, regenerating, transforming until the corpse had a visible face. Black lengthy hair lined it's rotted skull and eyes suddenly emerged from it's blank sockets as it's face slowly came to be. The rest of it's body turned from mulch to flesh, and soon Mugen came face to face with the ghoulish figure.

It's cold naked body toppled over Mugen's as it's tea scented breath muttered into his ears.

"I've found you, Mugen. And my precious sword as well."


	2. The Inferno in Edo

The smell of fire was burned into Mugen's nose. There was no way that he could ever forget the smell of human flesh roasting away in the flames. Screams came from the women of the brothel while those who could run ran away from the scorching inferno. Mugen raised his sword, his gaze transfixed on the man across from him, the bespectacled man.

"What's wrong?" Mugen sneered, "Is the heat getting to little Four-eyes?"

"No, but you could back out of this if you want, bastard." The man shot back. Then, in the two clashed swords, letting the metal bite against metal, solving their differences the only way they could: a sword duel.There was no other way it could have been done, this was, after all, the Edo period of the nineteenth century.

Men were frantically dousing water onto the flames, trying to scour what was left of their once grand city; no one was left to interrupt the two.

Mugen recklessly thrust his lithe blade, grinning with satisfaction as it whipped into the other man's skin, causing his blood to trickle down his chest. "Is that the best you've got, Jin? I expected more from a experienced samurai like you."

"Shut up. Were you this talkative when you raped my fiancee before you killed her?" Jin fought back, his blade slicing through the air and down onto Mugen, who blocked the move with his steel-plated sandals.

"Look, you dimwit, I told you that I didn't do any of that!"

"Stop talking and die, bastard!" Jin roared with anger as he ran towards Mugen, the tips of his clothes were burnt as the flames licked at them, turning what was once coarse silk into nothing more than ashes. "And you ran away too! After you pried her heart out of her body, you ran away, like a coward!"

The last move was unexpected; Mugen hardly noticed the dull sword until it flashed before his eyes. Soon after, Mugen felt a wave of intense pain as the blade sliced across his arm. Blood began streaming out steadily from his newly created wound, and his inflamed senses were numb as his eyes glanced over to the damage. His skin was blood crusted.

Red blood, almost as red as the sunset sky, if not more intense.

His body tensed as his eyes narrowed and Mugen stared at Jin, who looked back with a satisfied grin on his face

"Now," Jin wiped the moist blood from his blade before he pointed it towards Mugen, "to finish you off, then I can finally die in peace."

Mugen's eyes were bloodstained, his senses numbed even further by the large amount of blood that had already left his body, and his heart was beating frantically as his mind raced.

A voice within him chanted, "Kill, kill, kill or be killed!"

Like a demon, Mugen charged towards Jin, his sword was already embedded into the Jin's abdomen before he fell to the ground. It was now he who was bleeding. Jin's breath was slow and shallow, each breath deflated his body as it left him, one by one.

"No, you were the one who was supposed to die." Jin muttered, his eyes staring distantly towards the night sky which was glowing from the embers of the fallen city. The area was quiet now, all signs of life had already left or burnt to death. Mugen rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, feeling unnerved as he swiftly tore his sword out of Jin's dying body.

Jin let out a heavy sigh as the pain rushed back to him, his hands inching closer towards the void that was now consuming his body.

Then, without warning, Mugen purged the sword into Jin's chest and blood all came out like a mad rush. Mugen then finished him off as Jin watched with his dying eyes.

Notes- If you're confused... you should be. I'm confused too. But eventually, this will tie into the first chapter and in the end, everything will work out. If anyone notices something wrong with this chapter (like grammatical errors or spelling erroes), please let me know. Maybe if I'm feeling slightly grotesque, I'll churn out another chapter before the end of July. (Only because I don't write according to a schedule; I write only when I'm inspired to.)

I ... felt bad about having it end so abruptly, so I decided to continue this.

-- EDIT 7/14/2005

I think might have been mad at me making this so gruesome (it had me read the guidelines, again), so I edited this version. Email me if you want the unedited version.


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